I report on the business of sports for Forbes' SportsMoney group. My sports interests range from baseball and hockey to cricket and Formula One, though I specialize mainly in college football and basketball. Studying sports business interests me both as a writer and a sports fan, and I've found that digging through financial reports is often just as enjoyable as combing a box score. Reach me at csmith@forbes.com and follow me on Twitter @ChrisSmith813.

The Best And Worst College Football Teams For The Money

For the first time in our three years studying college football’s most cost-efficient teams, Kansas State is not on top. The Wildcats fell to No. 2 this year thanks to rising expenses – up more than $3 million last year – and a down season in which the team won just seven games. Kansas State’s title has been usurped by Cincinnati. The Bearcats rank among the sport’s lowest spenders, but only 12 teams have won more games over the last three seasons.

Cincinnati’s football expenses actually increased by more than 30% to $16.5 million last year, a cost surge tied to hiring head coach Tommy Tuberville away from Texas Tech (his buyout alone cost nearly $1 million). Despite the increase in spending, the Bearcats still have college football’s fifth-lowest expenses over the three years included in our study.

To determine college football’s best and worst teams for the money, we first limited our scope to the six automatic-qualifying (AQ) conferences: AAC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC. Teams from the AQs, or “power conferences,” can generally be expected to spend upwards of $12 million per year on football. From there, we compared each team’s football expenses to its on-field performance. The teams that spent the least per victory are the best for the money, while those that spent the most per win are the worst.

Our spending data comes from the three most recent years available in the Department of Education’s financial database (2010-11 through 2012-13). We compared those expense figures to each team’s on-field success over the last three seasons, excluding this year’s bowl games. Our methodology operates under the rationale that much of one year’s spending contributes to the following year’s performance. We also adjust each team’s win total to reflect a 12-game schedule to prevent conference championships and bowl games from skewing the numbers.

At No. 3 on our list of the best teams for the money is Stanford. Only Alabama has won more games than the Cardinal over the last three years, but Stanford’s expenses were less than half the SEC team’s. Baylor and Oregon, both also on last year’s list, round out the top five. Oregon maintains above-average spending, but its 34 victories over the last three seasons are tied with Stanford for second-most. Oregon is also the only school on our list to make our ranking of college football’s most valuable teams; the Ducks are now worth $64 million.

Mississippi State, Texas A&M and Louisville just miss making the best for the money list.

On the other end of the spectrum, Kansas maintains its stranglehold on the title of worst college football team for the money. The Jayhawks have spent over $8 million per victory, the result of playing in a major conference but winning just six games over the last three seasons. Cal and Colorado, which are also repeat offenders, round out the three worst teams for the money.

The fifth-worst team for the money is Auburn, which has been outspent by only Alabama over the last three years. But unlike Alabama, which hasn’t won fewer than 10 games since 2007, Auburn has suffered down years. Last year’s 3-9 campaign was nothing short of disastrous, and it’s still costing the team – firing head coach Gene Chizik will cost the Tigers $7.5 million over three years. Of course, this year’s run to the BCS title game ought to help alleviate that headache.

After Auburn are Indiana, Arkansas and Tennessee, the latter two of which point to just how expensive it is to try to keep up in the SEC.

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